YOURTOWN, US–After a recent independent investigation, it has come to our attention here at the Times that Dan K., a known pal to many locals, has indeed returned to the area.

For the past several months, Dan K.(whose last name is unknown but certainly begins with ‘K’) has been missing from the vicinity, leaving friends to consider social alternatives. Although no details are known of his mysterious departure, local residents are no doubt thrilled, and rightfully so, to learn of K.’s safe return.

Friend of the EW Times (and, of course, Dan. K), Travis Parcha, 23, had nothing but kind words to offer. “It’s [nice to him see doing] pretty good stuff [with his life].” Parcha then commented on the character of Mr. K. “[He’s] not seedy at all.”

Parcha, seen here, the last time he enjoyed quality time with Dan K.

Acquaintances agree that Dan should be around town for at least a few months, if not longer. In the event that he disappears again unexpectedly, Yourtown citizens can rest easy, knowing that they can always consort with Sherman Wag, a distant cousin of K. who’s really only fun to hang out with in large doses.

Gaia Online has suffered extreme hyperinflation in the past weeks, as the value of gold plummeted. The crux of Gaia’s economy is a steady flow of art-themed posting. Poetry, photography, and art of all kind and quality are equally rewarded. Through time, however, the quality of this art has completely degenerated beyond the point of recognition. For a minor amount of gold, a fraction of a fraction of what one needs to ‘buy’ accessories for their avatar, one user may copy-paste a Wikipedia article into the “non-fiction” category, or perhaps write a paragraph about their abusive families. Webcam photos of things in people’s computer rooms are also a major source of Gaia’s artwork.

Because the value of artwork has bottomed out, Gaia has begun coercing its users into posting even more worthless art to boost the economy. The fact is, that if a computer program were to continuously pick photos from google images, apply an Andy Warhol filter, and post it on Gaia, only to randomly give away all the gold it made, this whole system might be streamlined. Why should human beings post worthless art, when computers are so much more efficient at it?

People like speshelshell22 could continue to comment “i love pop art it looks good,” if they felt inclined, or this system could also be replaced by computer automation.

I will leave you with a poem from Gaia, written by xX_HyperSkittlez_Xx.

While it is not written directly about the state of art in Gaia, I think it’s apt.

youre walkin’ into town
then on your face there is a frown
its diarriayou try to poop it out
but you cant so you just pout
stupid diarria

no one knows how to spell it
so everyone just guesses it
diarria

you are in walmart
when you try and fart
uh oh
THERES A FREAKIN GLOB OF CRAP IN MY PANTS!!! WTF IS WRONG!!!!!! I FEEL ICKY

Children of all ages lined up in front of their schools today only to learn that classes were canceled indefinitely.

A victory every man can taste

Professors of social sciences, military advisers to the President of the United States of America, leading geneticists, politicians and local leaders from every recognized country, island, village outpost and tribe in the civilized world have declared that knowledge and education are useless as world peace has been achieved through peace talks, treaties, agreements, ceasefires, nuclear disarmament, and the cessation of arms manufacturers across the globe. They have concluded that mandatory education as it exists now serves only the military-industrial complex, a device known for generations as the primary source of conflict, strife and natural injustice among the traditionally benign and peace-loving human population of Earth.

In the wake of an agreement on worldwide peace, arms manufacturers such as Smith and Wesson, Colt, and Remington have all been paid historically immense dividends as both recognition of their lifetimes of labor and quality craftsmanship and as thanks for agreeing to shut down their plants or for channeling their industrial strength on peace-serving ends.

The collective thousands of billions of dollars once spent annually through the global industry of war has fed the world five-fold by present calculations and so have all been funneled into the scientific research and manufacture of the Small Nuclear Thermal Rocket Engine, safely deployed once in space after a regular SRB takeoff has breached the Earth’s mesosphere. The new nuclear thermal rockets will carry a manned spacecraft close enough to the speed of light through interstellar space that we will reach the neighboring star Proxima Centauri within the next four to five years. If given enough time to calculate a mission’s success rate and produce its means, Earthlings can expect receiving the first top-down images of the atmospheres of Centauri’s terrestrial planets (that’s extra-solar to those of us who don’t get to go just yet) by the year 2020.

In the meantime, every nation’s resources, acreage of land, national crop, GDP, and transportation capacities are being factored and calculated by the world’s leading independent scientists and mathematicians to ensure a fair global distribution of edible goods to and from all lands. This means bringing tastes and flavors unrecognizable to the Congolese people right into the center of their tribal feasting options. Unimaginable delicacies of East India meet Siberian hunters. Every last North Korean will be fed before December 31, 2009.

As if that weren’t enough, the now-defunct schools and colleges are being turned into social networking sites at which people of all ages still have the option of attending to discuss ideas, philosophy, God and the Universe, mathematics, science, art, literature and music, but a new law forbids the charging of admission as the buildings are paid for by no one and upheld by everyone thereby making a cover charge contradictory as it would create an artificial class system not unlike the one left behind in which the rich would be given a right to live disproportionate to that of the other ninety five per cent (statistics are care of Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) of a given population. Your money can and will still buy you nice TVs, an electric boat for retirement, pets and homes, but nobody will ever again have to pay for a fair and balanced perception of reality as we know it, as everyone plays an active role in its shaping up through socialization and direct democracy via up-and-coming internet voting software set up to register your direct, individual input on each and every issue set to pass across your congressman or senator’s desktop. Also, people are no longer limited to just two choices on any given issue. New answers are nominated automatically at the stroke of your very own keyboard and added to the list for others to second, third, and so on. Votes are tallied nightly, weekly, monthly and annually, a system akin to Nintendo Wii’s Everybody Votes channel.

People are expected now to go on into their new lives as easily as they have come into it; a safe, stable life in a utopia in which technology has brought every living man a say in government, locally, nationally, and internationally. Hunger is over, people love each other unconditionally and we can all explore space together, in peace, forever.